And We're in the Single Digits!
Only 9 more days until we board a plane to our happy place for two weeks!!
I thought I would share more of our daily tentative plans as a nice little countdown for the trip over the next few days. Because we're only 9 days away!! 9 days!!!!! I think I might just explode!!
I know I just said I was going to share all our tentative details for the trip in 9 days, buuuuuut let's back up just a smidge to discuss some happenings this weekend. This weekend was very productive trip prep-wise, even though it was full of drama.
Friday night we managed to exchange some more Best Buy gift cards for Disney gift cards after work. We've cashed in all our credit card rewards points from the last few years for this trip, and now we've converted all of our compiled Best Buy gift cards over. Super exciting! In addition to the gift card additions, I also managed to find a bathing suit at Target, and on clearance too!
I've been struggling to find a new bathing suit for this trip, and on a whim we decided to look over in the swimwear section over at our neighborhood Target, and there it was just hanging there. The exact style of bathing suit I've been looking for over the past few months. Initially, I could not find it in my size. However, I dug through the racks and way on the bottom in the back, there it was. The bathing suit I need in my size. Sweet swimwear victory! Now I no longer have to panic about which ill-fitting suit I currently own is likely to be the least scandalous to bring to WDW. I know. I live in southern California on the coast and I do not have a functional bathing suit. Not sure how this happened. It is fixed now though!
On Saturday we ran several errands, including picking up a few odds and ends at the mall for our Disneybounds and picking up a few items that were ready at the tailor. I needed some shorts taken in I wanted to wear for this trip, and this new tailor did an AMAZING job on them. My jumpsuit is supposed to be ready by next Saturday, so hopefully that looks just as amazing as the shorts.
So it sounds like this weekend was super productive and a great kick-off to our trip prep right? Well, after all our errand running on Saturday, we came home ready to do some relaxing and packing for our trip. Once we opened the door and walked in the house, we knew our trip prep planning weekend was taking a dramatic left turn for a detour.
We have3 dogs and 2 cats, and my dad's lab lives with us as well. While we were out running errands, one of our cats (we highly suspect our male cat, Figaro) opened one of the cabinets and knocked a brand new 60 count bag of large capsule Pill Pockets out onto the floor. We found the completely empty bag with a giant hole in the bottom on the floor. One of our dogs, our little 12 pound dog Gidgette, took it upon herself to rip open the bag and eat every. single. last. one. She was hunched over, her belly was completely distended, and she was clearly very uncomfortable. We knew we were in for a long, long night.
The face of intense regret.
Instead of packing, we spent the night tending to Gidgette and watching her closely to make sure she didn't need to take a trip to the ER vet. Thankfully, she is okay and we didn't need to visit the vet, but it was really dicey for a little while there. We did not get much sleep.
We were supposed to wake up this morning for an early trip to Disneyland to upgrade our APs for the WDW trip, but with how little sleep we got, I figured there was no way we were going to Disneyland today and we would just take care of it next weekend. However, Diana really wanted to go still and take care of it. SO we went and upgraded the APs, and no we have our Premier passes ready to go.
Upgrading our APs was quite the adventure and it took almost 3 hours. For any other Disneyland AP holders looking to upgrade their APs to a Premier pass, I'll outline the synopsis of what we had to do since information is not easy to come by for the process. First a few points to know about our situation:
- We started with Disneyland Signature AP Plus
- Our expiration date for the DL Signature AP Plus passes was 10/15/2017
- We just renewed our APs in September at the renewal price
- Since we are southern California residents, we renewed our APs in September on the monthly payment plan
- We had 10 1-day WDW park tickets we bought in August to make our FP+ reservations
To upgrade our passes to the Premier pass, the (incredibly nice and super helpful) CM had to:
- Verify the price we paid on the DL APs we had (we were credited the renewal price we paid, not the gate value of the AP)
- Apply the value of our DL APs to the price of the Premier pass (the full renewal value of the AP was applied and not just whatever portion we've paid on the monthly payment plan)
- We were able to stay on the monthly payment plan for the DL portion from our renewal
- Call WDW to get information on the tickets and approval to apply the value of the tickets toward the AP upgrade. DL does not have the ability (currently) to use WDW tickets to apply to a Premier AP directly and must call Florida to obtain the necessary information and obtain approval
- Receive payment for the remaining balance of the Premier pass after the (renewal) value of our DL AP and the WDW tickets was applied
- Make notes on both of our accounts for our old DL AP contract and for the new Premier pass contracts
It was definitely an adventure and it required the CM to get a lead involved to help since applying a WDW ticket to a pass upgrade at DL is not straightforward. An important note: if you're a current DL AP holder and want to upgrade to the Premier pass, you have to do it at DL. WDW will be unable to upgrade the pass for you (or so the CM lead told me today).
Since it took us so long to get this whole pass thing squared away, the amazing CM that helped us actually gave us TWO use on any attraction fastpasses for the day!! We used them for a quick trip on Ghost Galaxy and Tower of Terror.
Clearly, I'm the super excited fool in the back for getting my Premier pass today.
Since we now have the APs, I've added on a few extra FP+ to our trip I'll share all about in the coming itinerary posts
We're so excited for this trip and everything we've planned. I only hope one day we can take a trip as epic as yours. Darn jobs and their stingy PTO! So cool we're going to be at OKW during the same period I keep saying I'm going to do a RunDisney event one of these days......then I remember I hate running lol. But they look like so much fun!
We plan to go there at open on Thanksgiving but to be honest, I haven't looked into it all that much yet. Only enough to know that even if it means waiting 30 minutes or so for a lane, I don't want to pay the extra $10/pp or whatever it is to reserve a lane ahead of time. I also figured we'd end up eating some snacks/apps while there and planned to eat while bowlng, like at the lane. Assuming we can do that? Guess I need to research a little more
. They're extending the refurbishment well into November 
. Disney had re-booked us on Kali River Rapids for the morning of the 28th, but I do not enjoy that ride. I really dislike getting soaked in my clothes, and I always end up drenched from head to toe on those kinds of rides. Needless to say, I immediately changed that FP+ to Kilimanjaro Safaris at the same time our Dinosaur FP+ was scheduled. 
Hope this is the last big sad announcement before our trip! Now I'm just crossing my fingers for ROL previews at the very least.
Hmmm, 
We haven't gone since 2012 so I'm probably not the best person to ask..... Its never seemed as crowded as 
Bet it goes fast!!! I'll be looking for another post before you go!
